I had posted some reviews and news about The Curious Cup, most recent being that they died.  While praising CC, I was basting their 95th and Arapahoe competition, Brewing Market.  Well Brewing Market is still in business and CC isn’t, so I decided that I should probably suck it up and go work there for an afternoon.

Since I now live out that direction and I don’t want to come into Boulder every day, I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Brewing Market on 95th so I could use it as a reliable satellite office.  I was and I wasn’t.

First the good: the layout I like.  Tables on one end with ample elbow room between them and a mix of table sizes.  On the other end is a U-shaped couch and plush chair area that works well.  You can work there, but it is more a comfortable meeting spot, and there were two different groups of people having coffee meetings while I was there.  The entire east wall and much of the north wall is floor-to-ceiling glass which I think is a good orientation since you don’t get afternoon sun barreling down on you and your laptop.

Now the bad: Brewing Market is still Brewing Market.  The coffee sucks and the chai is even worse (hard to think that’s possible, but I confirmed that it is).  The internet policy is that you get access for two hours per order.  I can see the business logic behind it, but it’s shortsighted.  Unless your shop is packed to the gills with laptop zombies all day (ie., Saxy’s), you don’t need to worry about the occasional person who orders one drink and works for 6 hours.  To the rest of the people it’s a turn-off.

It’s too bad that CC went down the loser and Brewing Market stayed around the winner, but for a workspace it is decent.  Just don’t plan on loving your coffee.  If you live in the vicinity, it works.

Long live the Curious Cup, subject of a couple favorable recent posts (although let’s admit it, nothing much has been recent lately on this blog … that’s ok, judging by the stats you’re still reading).  An email went out today announcing the immediate closing of The Curious Cup.

This reviewer is devastated.  Having recently moved closer to Lafayette than Boulder (although still with a Boulder mailing address somehow), Curious had become my new office.  Now I have to go to Brewing Market on 95th and Arap?  No thanks!  Guess I’ll be hitting Ozo more often now.

Stopped by Ozo a few days ago and got my first shot of their new in-house roast.  OMG.  No: O-M-G.  Damn, was that thing tasty.  I had the dark roast (Isabelle) in a dry cappuccino and it was velvety, smoky and sweet without a bit of bitterness.  For my palette Ozo was the only shop that could do anything with Allegro, but thank god they’ve moved on.  Good job, boys!

This reviewer is still in Michigan so if you’re tired of hearing about coffee shops outside of the Boulder area, sorry, but at least for me it’s interesting to observe the contrasts across the country.  It’s especially interesting to see what locals get in small cities in the rural U.S. (I’m thinking population 1,000 – 10,000 and nowhere near a metro area).  These are towns far too small to have a Starbucks, and maybe even too small to have a decent espresso operation, but as I said in a previous post, indie espresso joints are on the rise throughout the heartland.

One such city is Munising in the Upper Peninsula, population a bit under 3,000 but a spry little tourist town that’s home to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  Visiting a couple of weeks ago, we badly needed decent coffee and ended up finding the only real coffee shop in town: the Falling Rock Cafe & Bookstore.  Now this was a real locals joint.  I don’t know how a town of fewer than 3,000 people has enough dedicated cafe regulars to have 300 earmarked mugs on the walls, each with a different customer’s name, but they do.  Maybe our beloved Walnut Brewery has more personal beer steins on its walls than Falling Rock has coffee mugs, but it can’t be by much.  It was nice to see a local coffee shop with such a dedicated following.

Unfortunately, at least in terms of the actual coffee, the good citizens of Munising aren’t given much love in return.  The coffee was disgusting.  I went back twice in a day, both times didn’t drink my drink.  This isn’t snobbery, this is plain, objective fact, confirmed by the multiple adults in our group (only one or two of which are coffee snobs) who tried the coffee.  The first visit we got coffees for 6 people and all were more or less undrinkable.  The second time, different shift, only two coffees and both were bad.  The baristas were friendly but completely untrained.  So maybe it was the baristas, or maybe it was the roast: Great Lakes Coffee.  My guess is that it was both.  Even with a woeful barista the quality of the coffee will still peek through.  Not in this case.  I’m still wondering where the good roasters are outside of Chicago.

The espresso experience was unfortunate, because otherwise Falling Rock is exactly the kind of shop I’d like to have in Boulder.  Physically it is half coffee bar and cafe and half bookstore, both with a good, comfortable feel.  Plenty of tables and chairs in both spaces and a cozy couch in the bookstore.  The cafe portion has a good menu of food options (we didn’t try anything though) with what is absolutely bedrock standard in midwest cafes: ice cream.  Saxy’s can have its gleaming euro stainless steel gelato cooler, but Falling Rock has the standard salt o’ the earth ice cream cooler.  As far as a cafe and bookstore combo, don’t we have that in the Boulder Bookstore?  No, not really.  There we have a huge bookstore attached by a single opening to a very uncomfortable coffee shop (probably Boulder’s most uncomfortable coffee shop).  In Falling Rock the scene is comfortable and mellow, with easy, natural movement between the cafe and bookstore.  At Falling Rock they are built to be together; at Boulder Bookstore the cafe seems like a bastard stepchild appendage.

We got this email a few days ago:

Hi there!

I realize that the coffee shop I am writing about is in Longmont, but it’s still Boulder County and I am sure you have lots of fans out there too!  There is a great new coffee shop –just opened — in Longmont called Corner Coffee Bar. It’s locally owned by Longmont High School alums and local business folks. It’s right next to the Longmont United Hospital, and really conveniently located off of Hover Road at 2130 Mountain View Avenue.  The feel is a little old school, a little hip, but never overtly trendy and has a bold and bright interior and a casual outdoor patio. In addition to a premium selection of specialty coffees and teas, the Corner Coffee Bar menu features a wide array of freshly prepared items including pastries, bagels, panini and croissant sandwiches, snacks, chocolates, and more.  You’ll find all the coffee drink staples, as well as other favorites including real hot chocolate (read: no chocolate-flavored powder here), smoothies, iced and frozen drinks, and sodas. The focus is fresh, simple food with coffee shop standards and a few innovations thrown in.

Probably the most unique feature of Corner Coffee Bar is an exciting new service called Splick•It.  Splick•It, founded and based inBoulder, is an online and mobile ordering service that allows customers to pre-order and pay for drinks, food, and other menu favorites quickly and conveniently from their mobile device. Customers simply choose their store, place their order, and arrive to find their items ready for pick up. Customers can also save regular or favorite orders, indicate when they want the order to be ready (5, 10, 20 minutes, etc.), and browse menu items and daily specials, making it easy and fast to get what you want, when you want it.  Both Corner Coffee Bar and Ziggi’s Coffee House in Longmont are among the very first coffee shops in the country to feature Splick•It.

Go on, go on, go visit.  I’m sure they’re good.  As far as Splick It, a few of us have been in on the testing for months now.  I guess that’s one of the perks of starting a coffee shops blog — you get to try all the new stuff.  Just haven’t posted because it’s still in beta, but some of us use it at Sidney’s.

First, Ozo.  We knew about this a month or two ago but didn’t want to leak it.  But since Greg from Ozo just posted this as a comment on another post, it deserves a full entry:

Hey there coffee fans-

This is just an update for all the coffee lovers out there…. Ozo Coffee Co. is proud to announce that we are now roasting our own beans!  Yep, we have phased out our Allegro roasts and are quickly depleting our Conscious Coffee stock so that we brew 100% of our own roasts!  They taste great and we are excited to continue bringing superior organic, locally-roasted coffee to our customers.  Come have a taste now!  Peace, love, and coffee.

-Greg
Barista, Ozo Coffee Co.

Can’t wait to try it!

In other news, recently lauded Curious Cup has decided to switch from Unseen Bean to Conscious Coffees.  (One major hooray from me!)

I plan my coffee around when the good baristas are working at my favorite coffee shops.  And if I walk in and see a not-so-good barista behind the counter, I will either leave or order a tea instead. I don’t want to waste my morning sipping a $3 cup of bitter ass coffee.

One stand-out – Ty at The Cup.  He usually makes a great coffee, and I think he can make the best coffee in Boulder (doesn’t ALWAYS, but he’s your best shot) BUT he doesn’t work on Sunday or Monday-so I avoid the joint entirely on those days.

Any decent fly fisherman knows that a woolly bugger is a wet fly (that feels like it has the mass of a lead weight compared to a typical dry fly).  It’s also the name of a little coffee shop in Harbor Springs, Michigan (and another location in Charlevoix, purportedly).  The shop is fly fishing themed, with fishing quotes on the walls and other visual aides to bolster the case.  It comes off a bit campy (ok, really campy), but otherwise the shop is cozy and workable, though pretty cramped.

Woolly Bugger roasts its own coffee (offsite, elsewhere in Harbor Springs) and the cappuccino I had was smooth and tasty and very mild.  Mild well beyond Amante’s roasts, if that’s any indication.  I’ll be near for a while so will go back for more visits and see if the subsequent shots are as mild.  As a change, I rather liked it.  I didn’t realize how inured I had become of the rocket booster roasts of Conscious, Kaladi, Unseen, etc.  I could get used to a milder espresso, or at least get used to having the choice on any given day.  At any rate, the coffee was well worth going back for.

The work space?  That might be a different matter.  It’ll do in a pinch (free wireless, of course), but for longer term working needs — i.e., reliably comfortable working space a day or two a week — Woolly Bugger isn’t going to be the choice because there is no elbow room.  Then again, there isn’t any other choice in Harbor Springs, so good luck if the world brings you here for a month or two.  Absolutely beautiful place of the country to visit and even stay, not the easiest place to be a traveling laptop zombie.

It’s been a few years since I was able to get the time and reason to make a long road trip but the opportunity presented itself recently and now here I am, 1,500 miles richer.  My rough route was Boulder to a little town about an hour outside of Rapid City, SD.  From there due east through SD and into Pipestone, MN before I headed northeastward.  I stayed on rural highways to Duluth, then stayed on Highway 2 through Ashland, WI and on into the UP (that’s “Upper Peninsula of Michigan” to those of you not from Michigan or the northwoods).  I stayed on Hwy 2 through the UP to the Mackinac Bridge, then into northern Michigan where I now rest.

First, two general observations.  I’ve made this trip a few times, always along slightly different routes, but more or less the same trip, the last time about five years ago.  Since then two things have happened: 1) wireless internet has hit the rest of the country; 2) indie coffee shops have hit their stride.  I mean no patronizing in either case, just the facts.

A few years ago there was no such thing as “free wi-fi” in the rural middle of the U.S.  Now, it’s everywhere.  It’s on marquee boards of cheap motels, LED signs of gas stations alongside the current price of gas, and sandwich boards outside of run-down sandwich shops in towns of 428 souls.  It’s shocking to see the variety of establishments you now see the sign proclaiming “free wireless,” “wireless internet!!” or “free wi-fi.”  Again, this is not along the interstates but inside the little towns you must pass through as you traverse Highway 23 through Minnesota or 123 through the UP.

Indie coffee shops have been around for a long time, and even in my road trips of 15 years ago were not too hard to find.  But they’ve risen to a new level.  They are no longer rare in small towns and are now multiplying like bacteria in the larger towns.

My first “find” was Coffea Roasterie in Sioux Falls, SD.  I stumbled into this shop after eating a late 3pm breakfast at the venerable Cracker Barrel (I don’t need to describe Cracker Barrel because, if a term is to be defined by a single instance, Cracker Barrel is the exact definition of “seen one, seen ‘em all.”  They are all absolutely identical, and blindfolded and dropped into five, you would have no reference to find any distinctions; I only eat there because I like the breakfast fare…) and then grabbing some gas.  I had just started to type “coffee” into my GPS when I looked up and saw a coffee shop across the street.  I was initially dubious because I was nowhere near the center of Sioux Falls, but well on the outskirts and just off an interstate exit, and this place looked from the outside like it was designed and run by a mall developer.  I was to be pleasantly surprised.

The owner of the shop, Paul, made me my preferred mocha: small and strong with just a little milk.  The chocolate was powdered and I was given a choice between milk and dark.  It mixed well, the coffee flavor shone through, and I was very happy for the next ten or twenty miles.  His shop is new and modern with a big, bright seating area, and for late afternoon on a weekday in what more or less was a strip mall area, had quite a few patrons.  To put it in Boulder context, the shop has more Saxy’s feel and less Trident or Roma feel — glossy, polished and clean, edged to an older “sophisticate” and not to a tatted-up, smelly college hippy (that last is written with a bit of affection, by the way).

I had the impression that Roasterie is very successful.  I didn’t have time to discuss business or their roasting (hit their webpage, they roast their own brews), but it is all clearly working well.  As their About Us page says, “We have been working in the coffee industry for years…” and it’s obvious.  The only thing that seemed incongruous to me was the larger setting.  This was a shop set in the usual ideal location for a Starbucks or other huge chain whose only aim is to grab as many marks as possible, not to be a coffee shop.  Yet they clearly want to be a coffee shop, not be a Starbucks one-off.  The location just off I-29 next to a Cracker Barrel and a huge gas station and shopping mall was weird, but having only whizzed through, maybe there’s something I’m missing about the immediate area.

My other coffee shop find of the trip was the Black Cat Coffeehouse in Ashland, Wisconsin (they don’t have a webpage).  Ashland is a semi-college town, perhaps in the same way that Boulder is a semi-college town.  Boulder has a huge university, but while the university’s presence is felt everywhere, the city isn’t dominated by it.  The same could be said about Ashland: Northland College is here, but the city has a bigger life of its own outside of the college.  Black Cat is definitely a college town coffee shop, in full contrast to Coffea Roasterie which seemed to cater to an older, more professional crowd.  Black Cat is old brick walls, worn-in tables and chairs, and a back-room library that had me wanting to become a grad student again. My dry cap was solid and tasty and needed no sugar for support.  They use two roasters: Alakef out of Duluth for their espressos and (I think, but I’ve lost the card I took with me) Tuvalu out of Verona, Wisconsin for their regular grind.  They also had a good-looking cafe menu and I would have loved to order food had I had the time to spare.  In my short five minutes in the shop it was clear that they enjoy a strong community presence: all of the patrons sitting seemed to know all who wandered in the shop.  Black Cat is just the kind of place I’d want near my small college.

The food find of the trip was a bar and grill in Willmar, Minnesota called Grizzly’s Grill, the only thing open after 10pm in Willmar.  Grizzly’s is a chain, and doesn’t pretend like it isn’t, but it only has about a dozen locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin, which I considered a huge plus.  It’s a chain to cater to the northwoods eater (“Fresh Flavors of the Northwoods”), and I’ll take that.   I would have been happier had there been moose and other game on the menu, but I understand that’s prohibitively hard to do for a restaurant (especially a chain) outside of Alaska and Montana.  Food was good, service was great and I was too full for dessert.  I don’t cater to chains very often, but I didn’t have better food anywhere along the rest of the ride.

We forgot to post this when it appeared in April.  Downtown Boulder Magazine posted the results of a poll (page 37 of the pdf) about the best downtown coffee shop (presumably from this list of 18 shops).  (We posted during the poll’s run).

Here are the results (actual screenshot from the magazine pdf is below the fold, but we had the full results emailed to us), and I have to say I’m scratching my head on a couple of these:

1. The Cup (18%)
2. The Unseen Bean (15%)
3. Laughing Goat (10%)
4. Great Awakening (8%)
5. Tee and Cakes (7.5%)
6. Amante (7%)
7. Trident (6%)

I’m good with the top-3, but Great Awakening?  Are you kidding?  And Saxy’s or Sidney’s didn’t make the list?  And while I like Tee and Cakes, Spruce Confections is roughly 346 times better.   One of three explanations are possible: 1) all of 14 people responded; 2) Readers of Downtown Boulder mag are not representative of actual coffee shop denizens; 3) ballot-box stuffing.  Either way, more grist for the mill that public polls like this are next to useless, which is exactly what one of our commenters noted on the post announcing the poll.